Comment by ninetyninenine
13 hours ago
You’re not cynical. The writer is self absorbed and many many people became “hackers” for similar ”cool” reasons.
Really you’re all just generic and overplayed programmers. It’s the same thing that causes programmers to call themselves ninjas and rockstars while someone like a chemical engineer doesn’t.
I think the Ninja stuff tbh comes from like a lot of pseudo-eastern philosophy that people buy into when it comes to programming and/or videos games e.g. the CSS Zen Garden.
Hacker and Programmer are categorically different.
There is significant overlap between the two groups.
Plumber is a category as well. The difference is that plumbers do not gather once a year to declare the Eternal Principles of Pipe. There is no Council of the Wrench. No one is arguing about the True Spirit of the Elbow Joint. They simply tighten the fitting and go home.
I believe Adam Savage has relayed the Plumber's Manifesto at some point: 1 Shit flows downhill 2 Payday's on Friday
they didn't used to be and the difference was only barely developing at the time this was written